


Easily Parted

by SilverServerError



Series: Monster on the Mountain [3]
Category: CLAMP - Works, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Dragon Kurogane, M/M, Phoenix Fai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 19:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7119181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverServerError/pseuds/SilverServerError
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragons are solitary creatures by nature. And yet long lived. To pass that time without companionship… Without a mortal to mark the change of the years… That way madness lies. To bond with them is a survival instinct that drives Kurogane as much as hunger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easily Parted

“If they irk you so much, why even accept the sacrifices?”

 

It’s an impertinent question. Just as the way Fai seems at home as he climbs through his hoard is impertinent. Too practiced. To comfortable. Entirely too familiar. Kurogane watches him warily but does not protest when the phoenix’s curiosity causes a small avalanche at the foothill of the small mountain of gold he rests upon.

 

He answers not because he must, but because he does not see a disadvantage to honesty. “It becomes…”

 

Despite all intention, he trails off into silence.

 

Dragons are solitary creatures by nature. And yet long lived. To pass that time without companionship… Without a mortal to mark the change of the years… That way madness lies. To bond with them is a survival instinct that drives Kurogane as much as hunger. Without them…

 

It becomes stagnation.

 

It becomes despair.

 

It becomes-

 

“Lonely?” Fai hazards with a questioning look over his shoulder.

 

Kurogane raises his head warily. At the same time, he does not deny it. “It’s not ideal. In the end they are all-” He searches for a way to express it.

 

“Flammable.” Fai says for him. It sounds like a joke but when the dragon finds blue eyes, it is anything but.

 

It’s not precisely how Kurogane was going to put it, but yes.

 

“You speak as if you have known this problem yourself.” This is no longer the type of negotiation they had agreed upon.

 

“We were made for each other, you know.” Fai is speaking loudly again, voice full to fill the cavern. Changing the subject and yet not. He climbs a staircase that wraps around the back wall, arranging newfound treasures from the horde on his neck and wrists. He has somewhere found a golden laurel branch that now sits atop his head. “Our kinds, I mean.” As he climbs, he passes numerous statues of obsidian and idly lets a hand trial along the muscled planes of stone bodies. He turns to seat himself on a step when he reaches Kurogane’s eye level. They are not so very far away. “Dragons only started keeping humans as pets when my kind started to disappear. You think you want them, but what you truly crave is someone who can withstand your fires.”

 

“You presume to know my desires?” It is horribly insolent. And yet Kurogane cannot say he is satisfied with what he has known. There is a grief and hollowness to this place. Perhaps there is wisdom in what this interloper claims to be truth. Kurogane is old, but Fai is ancient.

 

He lounges against the step behind him and crosses a leg over the other. He examines the sapphire stones in the golden bangles at his wrist. “Kuro, do you even like gold?”

 

‘Kuro’?

 

He’s a dragon. He collects gold. It’s what he _does_.

 

Fai continues, finally looking to him. “Because I _love_ it.” He’s smiling. His eyes are coy. “That’s what you’ve been doing for hundreds of years; Collecting the gold I want. Preparing your home for someone like me.” Fai tips his head back against the next step and lets his gaze get lost in the intricate tiling of the ceiling. “Nesting.”

 

It’s impetuous in a way no one has dared be to him in all the time he can remember and yet…

 

“I should stay a while.” Fai says as he laces his fingers together over his stomach.

 

“Yes.” Kurogane says it without thought and Fai gives him a strange look that makes him immediately regret it.

 

“I mean until twilight. When the light won’t burn my skin on my walk back to the village.”

 

Kurogane doesn’t respond but he stretches his wings high, then settles in a new position of rest.

 

“Do you mind if I keep this?” Fai raises an arm to show the gold circling his wrists and by extension the rest of the objects pilfered from his lair and now strewn about his person.

 

“But they’re mine.”

 

“Relax, you won’t even miss them. And I’ll be supplied for at least a month on something like this.”

 

“Supplies?”

 

Fai shrugs. “Food. Lodging. Clothes.”

 

“Stay here.”

 

“I can’t stay forever.” There are more villages to save.

 

“Then stay while you can. Until you must leave.”

 

Fai seems for once at a loss for words. But he looks around the cavern. It is opulent in a way that impresses even him. And… there was just _so_ much gold. “Ok.” Fai seemes to decide even as he is saying it. “I’ll… I’ll bed here, but I still have business to attend to below during the day.”

 

“Like selling off my treasures?” Kurogane says it, but there is a clear if subtle inflection of gruff teasing.

 

Fai just smiles, game to play along. “Well, I can’t eat them, so unless you want me to starve... And a new wardrobe! You wouldn’t believe how quickly I can go through clothes.”

 

“And yet you ignite them so carelessly”

 

Fai laughs indulgently. “Excuse me! I seem to recall _you_ starting that fire!”

 

Kurogane rolls onto his side and stretches out with a pleased exhale, sending trickles of gold down the pile’s sides. The clothing has become a tiny victory but those too can be sweet when your opponent is someone you respect. “Why do you hide on my staircase?” He asks with a smirk.

 

Fai sits up a little, surprised. “You wish me closer?”

 

Kurogane reaches a claw out to him and Fai alights it with a practiced ease, holding a talon for support, keeping his weight on one joint to aid his balance, stepping off into the gold carefully like a sparrow might on a rocky shore. Fai even seems to know to stay in his line of sight without having to think about it. It is nice to hear the soft clinking of gold under a companion’s feet again.

 

“You have some beautiful pieces here.” Fai settles on a hip, his legs out to the side, the laurel is back in his hands. “I don’t think I’ll sell this one.” It doesn’t sound like much but is high praise from someone who often has free range over dragon hordes.

 

“You’d fetch a good price for it. They don’t create in that style anymore.” Kurogane seems rueful about it.

 

“I’m sorry.” Fai says, a little softer. “I saw the ruins all the way up the mountain. You must have been devastated.”

 

Kurogane just pulls his head back a little and averts his eyes. “I watched their city grow for hundreds of years. And the jungle took it back in a single generation.”

 

“Was it the volcano?”

 

“Plague.”

 

Fai sits on a knuckle of his foot and lies back with a twist, resting his cheek against a strong ankle. Only when his hand comes up to stroke slowly down his scales does Kurogane realize it is a gesture of comfort. “The humans will rebuild. They always do.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Fai reaches the foot of the mountain he is tired and hungry. A night in a soft bed and a meal at the inn will go a long way towards happiness, but that is already coming harder now that he knows this village and its history.

 

Though it does not seem small compared to many a coast town, it’s almost nothing compared to what it once was. It almost doesn’t seem worth saving now that he knows how destroyed it already is.


End file.
